HoH Melotte 15 - first light on second rig at e-Eye

[Barry-Wilson]

Back in October, Steve and I visited our remote setup in Spain for some maintenance on our Tak FSQ106/GM1000HPS/QSI683 rig and to set up a new scope and ccd on my newly acquired secondhand GM2000HPS II UP mount.  Steve had driven out with Lis and their TEC140 and QSI690 + Astrodons for the this new rig.

After some cloudy and rainy autumnal weather we have managed to gather 21 hours of NB data for our first light choosing the classic Heart of the Heart as it is well placed and has abundant data to check everything is functioning how it should.

I have enjoyed pushing the data somewhat as this target can withstand a bold approach and it is a delight to be imaging at 0.75"/px.

For those of a PI bent, I used a modified tone mapping approach for the processing, creating a starless version of the combined SHO data before using the Ha data combined as a CieLab luminance.  Thus the image is really a HaSHO.

CS!

Barry

[tomato]

Magnificent, a quality setup that is certainly delivering quality data. 0.75”/px and it shows. ?

Looking forward to seeing some galaxies.....

[Pompey Monkey]

Not much to say on this - it's lovely!

[Laurin Dave]

Wow Barry, that is fabulous... 

[Davey-T]

Another masterpiece Barry.

I see your Leo Trio is in December AN.

Dave

[newbie alert]

Simply just gorgeous...

[Barry-Wilson]

Thanks everyone, much appreciated.

[Allinthehead]

Wonderful image Barry. I don't know how you manage 2 remote rigs. I can barely manage mine and it's at the bottom of the garden.

[Rodd]

The best Melotte 15 I have seen. I tried this at .78 arcsec/pix and it came out softer than an attempt at 2.46 arcsec/pix.  Never understood that.  Had allot of data to.  

How do you do a starless in PI?

Rodd

[Barry-Wilson]

Thanks Richard.

Rodd - briefly the following method:

1. Stretch the SHO image using your preferred method.  Resolve any magenta star issues prior to progressing to step 3.

2. Create a star mask.  I use the new script DSO Mask.  You may need to tweak the size of the star mask to ensure the star and any very small halo are incorporated in the mask.

3. Apply to SHO and apply Morphological Transformation.  I use 100% with 5 iterations, then 50% with 5 iterations.

4. Use convolution to blur the remaining 'star'.

5. Use MMT on the star with all but the R layer disabled.

7. Use some NR to reduce chrominance noise.

8. This starless image will not look exceptionally neat like a Stratton produced image but it serves as the RGB base layer.

9. Combine the non-linear Ha using Channel Combination in CieLab mode.

HTH & good luck!

[Rodd]

1 hour ago, Barry-Wilson said:

HTH & good luck!

Thanks, Barry--will give it a go.  I never thought I wanted to look at Mel 15 again, let alone shoot it.  But your image has me hungry for it again.

Rodd

[carastro]

Beautiful image Barry.  I really love this.

Carole 

[MartinB]

Cracking image Barry.  I like the way you have handled the colour